


there's a lot of ways to die in a space war but you probably didn't expect this one

by red_blue_shades



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Big Brother Takashi TM is here, Crack Taken Seriously, Pseudoscience, Until it isn't, Very seriously, also kolivan is pretty sure keith is krolia's son so there's that, and huh i guess i can write space wars, briefly mentioned - the Jersey Devil, broganes, but a very fake version of it, crackfic, excuse the title i have no ideas, hunk and pidge are meta, like this is the fakest possible science, oh also the fitnessgram pacer test, shiro is dying inside, slight background klance because I Had To, the fitnessgram pacer test was invented by the galra (as a torture device)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21729628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_blue_shades/pseuds/red_blue_shades
Summary: Shiro is tired, Keith is an Anime, Team Voltron is functioning as it does. Oh, and the Blade of Marmora are there, too, along with their leader...er, what was his name again?A rewrite of part of s2ep8.Inspired by that one post from like s2-3 era - "voltron au where everything is the same except the blade of marmora challenge is just keith having to do the fitnessgram pacer test". Because there's a lot of ways to die in a space war, and one of those ways is the beep test.Basically, a oneshot that's somewhere between crackfic and Actual Serious character introspection.
Relationships: Heartwarming Family Bonds and that's it
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	there's a lot of ways to die in a space war but you probably didn't expect this one

**Author's Note:**

> Surprised? Because I SURE AS HELL AM.  
> Anyway enjoy a dumb self indulgent meta as hell oneshot.

_“How? I’ll do it!”_

The words ring out across the room. The already hostile air seems to gain 30 more degrees of frostiness. Shiro silently curses his younger brother figure and fellow Paladin.

Big man in charge - Coleslaw fan? - processes the dramatic statement like he’s processed everything else in the short time the Black Paladin has known him: with no outward reaction. Honestly, there’s a pretty good chance in Shiro’s mind that Cormorant here is actually AI or an automaton of some sort. He can’t actually see whether or not he’s breathing, plus they’re in space. Everyone’s got freaky technology, automatons exist, AI exists. Boom. Shiro is quietly nodding to himself about the truth of this statement when Coriander speaks again.

“The trials of Marmora,” he intones gravely. Ah, the drama is continuing. 

“Should you survive, you may keep the blade and its secrets will be revealed.”

Should. Should you survive. As in a very big chance that you, you being either the general you or your angry determined brother, will not survive. Yeah, okay, no, nope, he’s putting a stop to this. Time to intervene. This emo cult drama and whatnot was nice while it lasted.

“ _Survive?_ Keith, this is crazy. If they’re not going to help us, let’s get out of here.” _Do not let them bait the moron. Do not let them bait the moron. If your impulsive charge gets himself killed it is your fault for letting them bait him. Do not let them bait the moron._

“I’m not going anywhere. I have to do this,” Keith says, in the way he does when he’s made up his mind. Gods, astral deities, Lions, whatever they have in space - does he think he’s an anime protagonist? _Why does he always sound like an anime protagonist?_ For that matter, why does Shiro himself sometimes sound like an anime protagonist?

Kettle Corn seems to make a decision. Good.

“Very well.”

Wait. What? No! Kit-kat made the wrong decision! _Shiro, you failure of an older brother, you let them bait the moron!_

“We will give you the trial,” Corn chip continues. “Only if you pass the trial will you regain the blade.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” Shiro calls out amid the tense silence. Although some part of him is screaming to grab the boy by the collar and drag him away, he knows that if Keith wants answers, Keith will get answers. The knife is obviously important to him - and staying at the base for longer could help them secure an alliance. Still, he doesn’t like the sound of this whole ‘if-you-survive-bleh-bleh-we’re-so-scary-and-cool’ deal.

Krispy Kreme, once more, shows no outward sign of processing the words. (Either he’s got a hell of a poker face or he really _is_ AI. Shiro is sticking with the latter until he gets solid proof.)

“These trials result in one of two things: knowledge, or death.”

Oh, _shiii_ \- uh. Quiznak. That doesn’t sound fun.

* * *

“So what exactly _are_ these trials?”

Shiro is carefully trying to maintain his dignity by _not_ running to keep up with Call-me-maybe...but _damn_ do these Maraca - ahem, Marmora - people walk fast. They’re making their way down another long, cold, grey-purple-black hallway, and while Shiro usually moves faster than the other Paladins as a general rule, _every single one_ of the agents walking with them is _just_ outpacing him. He can almost _hear_ every single meme-loving little shit in his life calling him Grandpa, just on the edges of his consciousness. It’s a slowly-burning and painful taunt, and it drives him to the edge of running while aforementioned dignity holds him back.

Can’t-stop-the-feeling still isn’t reacting to anything. Even with his ungodly pace, he’s walking with the general ease of a casual stroll around the block. If he hears Shiro’s question, he shows no sign of it. (That’s a very diplomatic way of saying ‘ _quiznak you, stop asking questions_ ’: blatant ignorance. So now he’s going from grandpa to six-year-old child, huh?)

About three-quarters of the way down the hall, Croissant stops. Shiro almost walks into him. This is the cost of speed-walking, he thinks grimly as the Blade gives him an unimpressed glare. Yeah, go ahead, glare, you king of the furries that took MCR too far. None of this would have happened if you’d just cool your jets and walk at a reasonable pace. Really. You’re not going all that slowly even if you decide to tone it down a few notches.

“I believe they are familiar to Earth,” says Call of Duty. “A translator will make the instructions clear to the challenger.”

“His name is Keith,” Shiro says on instinct. Honestly. It’s always been ‘the orphaned kid’ or ‘the troubled pilot’ or something ridiculous like that. If this freaky space league of assassins is gonna make his brother fight for the knife, they could at least deign to learn his name before they kick his ass. (No offense to Keith. But Shiro still wholeheartedly believes this a terrible idea.)

Karma’s-a-bitch gives a dismissive ‘hm’. Big brother Takashi says _clock him, you can blame it on the Galra arm malfunctioning_ , but diplomacy and the interest of creating an alliance scream _do not punch him in the face are you kidding_. 

Kreacher scans his hand, and a tall section of the wall slides open. Shiro enters the room with him.

It looks somewhat like the inside of the clear-walled room above the training deck on the Castle. Y’know, _that_ one, the one that seems to have no purpose except judgement, (as in when Allura’s giving them new training courses) and thirst (as in when Lance thinks no one can see him ogling Keith training or vice versa. Shiro’s entire space family in general is so very _not smooth_.) Either way, the general idea seems to be _observation_ , so he guesses they’re here to overlook whatever incredibly painful torture Keith is about to undergo.

“Here is the basic outline,” Colander says, lighting up the black-tinted shield of material (presumably glass, but who really knows anymore?) that theoretically makes up the ‘observation’ part of ‘observation deck’. A rectangle of purple light glows dimly, and then words scroll across the dark screen. Shiro leans forward, trying to read the smaller print.

It takes a moment to translate the Galra print into English, but then it clicks. He turns to look at Candy-corn in horror. 

“Are you serious?”

“I assume from your tone that you have heard of this challenge?”

“ _Challenge?_ This is a death sentence! You can’t make him do this!”

“If he wishes to learn the truth, he must pass the trial,” says Christmas Man calmly. “It is knowledge...or death.”

The instructions fade away. Screens flicker to life, all showing a single room from various angles. It’s got the same gloomy aesthetic that the entire organisation seems to follow (and hey, what’s with space organisations and dark colour schemes? Is Voltron really the only team out there wearing neon space rainbows? Actually, did they somehow space-trademark specific shades of those five colours in particular? There’s no one else he’s seen wearing those colours, ever, and he’s seen a lot...).

Amid the grey floor and dark grey walls and purple lighting (what an aesthetic) is a lone figure wearing the dark uniform of the Blade. The only way Shiro recognises him initially is the fact that there’s actually, literally _no_ point in monitoring anyone else. Who else would be on the screen? Honestly. Use some common sense.

“You found him a new outfit pretty fast,” he remarks. Caramel gives him a sideways glance.

“How’d you find one in his size so quickly? Come to think of it, where do you even _get_ these things? Or no, wait, don’t tell me. It’s yet another space magic thing. We have a surprising amount of those.”

He doesn’t quite know what point he’s trying to get across, especially since stalling is pointless, but he’d rather not watch his headstrong brother run himself into the ground trying to prove himself to a bunch of judgemental emo a - HEM. _A group of rebel fighters._

Although...that _is_ a good point. They all just kind of accepted it when Allura told them their armour changed to fit the wearer...and somehow the Blade procured a suit for Keith, despite him being maybe around half the size of the average Galra...and the translators, too - how do they work so _well?_ Humanity has made incredible strides in space technology and yet Google Translate is...something left better untouched. (Shiro will never forget the time Adam tried to use Google Translate to speak with him in Japanese...it was horrifying. Needless to say, he’d proposed soon afterward.)

“We will commence the trial in a matter of minutes,” declares Cornflakes. On the screens, Keith stands in the center of the room, seemingly listening to something. Violet lights glow from the low ceiling. Are they pulsing?

“Your friend is receiving his instructions,” says Kringles before Shiro has the chance to ask. “The lights transmit data that the suit receives and converts the words into Earthen English.”

Shiro almost asks what other kinds of English there are, but decides he’d probably be ignored again. He decides to turn his attention to the screen instead - he’s got at least two Marmora bases worth of questions about this weird-ass adventure they got caught up in, and there’s no point trying to get all the answers, because that’d be impossible. So. The trial.

The purple lights stop their faint pulsing, the transmission complete. Keith stands still a moment - probably still trying to process the instructions - before pacing in abrupt, choppy movements to the far side of the room. Shiro knows what’s happening: the panic. The barely-contained, attempting-to-ignore-it panic. 

There’s always the nervousness, clawing at the edges of your mind. It’s always there, gnawing away at you, the knowledge of your impending doom. But it’s when you’re in the room that it really hits you - that it’s real, that in a matter of minutes or even seconds it will be your reality. That soon your world will be reduced to breathlessness and fear, and that no amount of strategising or carefully calming yourself down can help you. There is no pace, only terror and panic.

“How long do you expect him to last?” he mutters. Common man taps a few commands into another screen. 

“However long he thinks he can; however long is necessary. This is not a game, Black Paladin. We are fighting a war. If he is worthy of knowledge, believe me, we all will know.”

“That’s...not an answer.”

Coronation’s finger hovers over a large purple button.

In the testing room, the black-suited figure takes a deep inhale - steadying himself.

Shiro closes his eyes. 

(He’s never been much for praying, but he doesn’t want his brother to go out like this - running on anger and part of a _terrible_ edgy aesthetic - so he’ll make an exception.)

He hears the slight _click_ as the Blade’s fingernail taps against the screen. 

(He’s considering plugging his ears, too. Actually - yeah. He does. Surreptitiously. Very subtly.)

The trial begins.

(He doesn’t need to be able to hear it to know what the hell-recording will say.)

_“The FitnessGram Pacer Test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that gets progressively more difficult as it continues…”_

(Although maybe, when he looks back on it, he should have tried to listen.)

* * *

It does not start off too badly.

The Red Paladin runs well. The first several laps are completed with ease. If there is any discomfort, he does not show it.

Still...the challenger is human. At some point, he will begin to lag. This test was designed as a form of torture, if Kolivan remembers correctly. It was, admittedly, lax, created in a time when Daibazaal had not yet been destroyed. Focussing more on draining the subject of energy than creating pain, the challenge was worsened by knowing that at any moment one could end the suffering. Yet, through some mysterious psychological phenomenon, no one ever did. 

Eventually, the test was incorporated into a training regime of sorts, in time even integrated into a regular pastime. In fact, he recalls, their eventual prowess at the run may have added to the fear factor of the Galra Empire: members of other species were, on certain occasions, challenged to run against a Galra competitor. All had lost.

How had it reached Earth? It must have - the Black Paladin had evidently heard of it. Through rumour? Or personal experience? Perhaps it had somehow been broadcast in the aftermath of the explosion. 

In any case, the human challenger will not last much longer. The Galra have specifically adapted to fight to the end of the test when no other species has. It is hopeless.

And yet...the Red Paladin keeps running. Lap after lap after lap.

Over his shoulder, the Black Paladin winces as yet another signal chimes. The small figure on the screen swivels, jogs another length of the training room. 

He’d been asked a question by the Black Paladin...ah, yes.

How long does he expect the human to last?

Truthfully, he’d expected him to drop out quite some time ago. Yet the Black Paladin does not seem surprised at how well his broodmate - is the Earthen English term _sibling_? - is doing. Perhaps humans are more resilient than he’d originally thought. After all, all of the Voltron Lions chose humans as pilots…

The voiceover goes up another level.

The Red Paladin continues to run.

* * *

Keith doesn’t know how much longer he has to run.

But he will! He’ll keep running forever if that’s what it takes. He needs to know the answers. And so he’ll run the trial - which is just the beep test, apparently - a hundred times, if that’s what the Blade of Marmora wants. As many times as it takes to get the answers.

He’s ready to die to know where he comes from. Running laps is nothing.

The other Paladins...he knows they’re trying to understand him, and he knows he’s not making it easy. But this isn’t something he can explain, it’s just…

_What’s so important about the knife?_

It’s the only connection to his past. It’s the only chance he has about knowing who he is and where he came from.

(Pivoting on one heel, he readies himself for the next beep. He doesn’t even have a whisper of a second to rest before it sounds, and he’s off again.)

_And...why does that matter?_

Because...he doesn’t know anything about himself. That’s it, isn’t it? He doesn’t know anything about himself, and he tries to piece together his past, tries to make himself more than the fire-streaked boy who stumbled from ash and smoke into the footsteps of a piloting prodigy, more than the Galaxy Garrison dropout who escaped into space, more than…

More than what?

(He doesn’t know how long he’s been running, only that every fibre of his body is burning, screaming with pain, and and he’s bound to wear out soon, isn’t he? He’s got to give out at some point...and at that point he’ll just grit his teeth and try to keep going.)

More than what he is now?

More than the Red Paladin, the right arm of Voltron, defender of the universe? More than the outcast, the loner even when there’s only six others to interact with? More than Keith?

And how can he be more than Keith - how can he know what it would be like to be more than Keith - if he doesn’t even know who Keith is?

So he has to know. He has to find out about his past. And so he’ll do the Trials of Marmora, and he’d do them a thousand times over and over.

A chime. _Start level twenty-one one._

_Twenty-one one?_ Doesn’t that mean he’s almost at the end of the tape? How long does it go on for, anyway?

_Beep. Twenty-one two_.

He settles into a sort of numbness. _Beep_ , turn, run another lap. _Beep_ , swivel, ignore your burning muscles, your seemingly empty lungs. _Beep_ , drag yourself across another line over and over again, faster and faster, wait for the pain to end.

_Beep. Twenty-one sixteen._

21.16...the end? As far as Keith can remember, the cadet with the highest score on the test (who’d graduated a year or so before he’d even made it into the Garrison) had gotten to level 15.6, a record he personally had tried and failed to beat every year. Once, though, he’d decided to find out just how long the running hell dragged on, and...isn’t it 21.16? Isn’t it over?

And then it hits him. The recording - what had the recording said?

_“This test may be familiar to you, but possibly more difficult than what we have found the Earthen equivalent to be…”_

It’s not over. It may be far from over. It may even go on for hours. 

And if Keith wants answers, he’s going to keep running.

* * *

“Hold on.” Shiro stares at Crawfish with mounting horror. “There’s...the test ends at level twenty-one sixteen. It should be over!”

The Blade shrugs.

“It is not over, Black Paladin. If your Earthen test ends at level twenty-one sixteen, I can only assume that either the incomplete test was transmitted or Earth received only less than half of the recording.”

“Transmitted? What are you talking - wait... _less..._ than _half?_ ”

Crayon nods, completely calmly. “The Red Paladin has a long way left to run...if he can, that is.”

* * *

The numbness can only hold for so long. The pain starts to creep its way into the forefront of his mind. 

_Beep. Twenty-three eight._

Keith grits his teeth and tries to keep going. He runs. Time passes. The numbness becomes a pain all its own.

_…ty-four five…_ step after step _...five-nine_...how much longer does this go on?

The beeps dull to a quiet hum in his ears, but that may just be his heartbeat. His mouth is dry, his lungs can’t hold any more air and they’re in desperate need of some.

_This is ridiculous,_ yells the Shiro Voice of Reason inside his head. _You don’t need to get yourself killed over a knife_.

But he needs answers. _He needs the world to make sense, at least a little_. And he’ll take any chance to find out who he really is.

So Keith runs.

* * *

“You can’t be serious. You’re going to kill him!”

Carrot cake doesn’t even bother glancing at him. “Knowledge or death, Shiro."

He doesn’t know if the Blade plans to spout mantras at him all day while Keith slowly runs himself to death on a screen somewhere, and at this point he doesn’t care. “I’m calling this off.”

He whirls, strides away - and his path is blocked by two more Blade agents.

They can’t trap him here! ...Can they? Space Etiquette 101 didn’t cover this...mostly because there is no Space Etiquette 101, but _damn_ does he wish there was.

Onscreen, the figure stumbles. For a moment, he thinks _this is it_ \- but no, the stubborn idiot picks himself up and makes it to the other side of the room before the beep.

Trapped in the room, Shiro reluctantly turns his attention to the screen. _Beep_ , a haphazard dash, _beep_ , a frantic sprint, _beep,_ a desperate run. Another beep, another set of terrible synonyms. And so the cycle goes on.

* * *

How long has this been going on? How many levels have the Blade added?

His legs don’t quite feel like jelly, he muses detachedly. Nor do they feel like lead. No, more like...driftwood, sea-soaked driftwood. (Because when he’s tired, of _course_ he’ll fall directly into spouting shitty metaphors - and of _course_ they’ll be shitty _ocean_ metaphors.) Stiff in all the wrong muscles, brittle and ready to snap one way and falling apart - organised chaos - in the other. Holding together, but precariously. On the verge of fraying and disintegrating. If he stops for even a fraction of a second, he thinks he’ll just collapse and never stand up again. Which is why he can’t stop. At this point, he’s not even turning, just scrambling across the room, barely tapping the edge of the set boundaries before he’s whirling again and off in the other direction. 

If he still believed in miracles, he’d think it’s a miracle he hasn’t missed any levels yet. It’s like fighting hand-to-hand or flying Red, skimming the edge of a blade or a blast, that breathless feeling that death is a precipice that you’re teetering just on the edge of. Or maybe that’s just the lightheadedness. Breathing is both a chore and something that comes _too_ easily; at this point he’s just trying to regulate his breathing while his legs move on autopilot.

Can he really only focus on one thing at once? It seems like it, so he focusses on crossing the floor before the beep ( _that quiznaking beep_ ) and he doesn’t think about anything else. 

All you have to do is try. Try to make another lap, try to keep yourself running even when reality and pain blur to the point where you think you might actually be on fire, try to ignore the dryness in your throat, how your mouth tastes like copper, how the world’s going fuzzy around you -

* * *

_Level one-hundred thirty. This is the end of the Test._

The audio cuts off.

Shiro is _this_ close to forgetting his dignity and just. Whooping. Cheering. Using the confetti blaster he _knows_ Pidge and Hunk have hidden somewhere in the Paladin armour. Going all out.

“He did it!” he grins, on the verge of giddy laughter either from bottled-up concern or relief. Maybe both.

Crunchy foods nods, seemingly deep in thought.

“That he did. In fact…”

But Shiro’s tuning him out. The screens haven’t flickered out of visibility yet, and the lone figure in the room has stopped at one side, leaning heavily against the wall.

He takes two steps towards the door, hesitates, glances back at the Blade still quietly debating with himself.

“I don’t suppose you’ll stop me from leaving now?”  
  
“The trial is over,” is the reply. “Antok, escort the Black Paladin to his friend.”

One of the Blades blocking the exit nods and is out the door almost immediately. Shiro follows them down a series of sharply-turning halls until they reach a particularly imposing set of sliding-metal doors. The Blade scans their hand, and the doors hiss open, and -

* * *

_Level one-hundred thirty. This is the end of the Test._

Is -

Is it over?

Does he dare hope it is?

His breathing sounds painful even to his own ears, and his lungs have suddenly rebelled, seemingly trying to compress as tight as possible. Keith stumbles to the door, vision blurring. He’s leaning on the wall, although the arm he’s relying on seems an altogether untrustworthy support. Still...

It’s...over. He’s passed the damn trial, and _now he just wants answers._ _He’s done what they want him to, just let him know the answers!_

There’s a high-pitched ringing in his ears, and either the Blade aesthetic got gloomier while he was running or the room is slowly getting darker, and the purple glow fades away in front of his eyes as the world blurs and refocuses, blurs and refocuses, blurs -

A panel slides open - the door, but wasn’t he closer to the door? Where is he, anyway? ...There’s two shadows in the doorway. He’s more than willing to bet he knows one of them, so he tries to take a step closer, but _the ringing gets so loud and the world isn’t refocusing this time...and he’s maybe just realising that the darkness isn’t in the room but in his own vision, he’s either weightless or falling -_

* * *

_(The Blade scans their hand, and the doors hiss open, and -)_

_“Keith!”_

\- and his brother quite literally falls out.

Shiro catches him easily. Passing out _cannot,_ in any way, be a good side effect of completing a run.

“Hey…” rasps Keith. “That wasn’t the FitnessGram Pacer Test.”

With that, he collapses, fully giving in to the strain of running non-stop for...what was it? A hundred thirty levels of nonstop goddamn _beeping_?

Either way, he’s right - that’s not the FitnessGram Pacer Test, it’s some other freaky Galra machination that _seems_ just like it. 

Karaoke comes striding up the hall.

“Give the boy the blade,” he commands. Shiro frowns.

“What do you expect him to do? He’s unconscious, as far as I can tell.”

“Yes,” says the tall Galra, “but he completed the run, so there is nothing stopping him from awakening the blade...once, of course, he is awake to do so.”

“What do you mean? Was there something stopping him before?” He swears to - something, the astral plane, Lions, dead Alteans, whatever - if they rigged the trial, let Keith go in expecting him to die over a stupid running challenge…

Coconut aims a level gaze at him. 

“Let me explain something to you, Shiro. This test was designed to be as difficult as possible. Over time, these parameters shifted as more and more modifications were made. At this point, using the guidelines that we did, the only possible way for your friend to have even continued running past level fifty is for Galra blood to run through his veins.”

Shiro mulls this over for a minute, expressionless. (At this moment, if they really were the show that everyone onboard the Castle-ship seems to like to pretend they are, there would be a very dramatic scene change so that some mysterious audience would have to wait through another just-as-dramatic scene to see his response.)

Then he shrugs. 

“Okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Okay.”

“I had expected a more shocked reaction.”

Shiro shifts, pulling Keith up from the awkward position he’s landed in. He probably should have done that sooner, actually.

“To be honest, I’m not entirely surprised,” he says. (Adam was one hundred percent convinced he’d seen Keith’s eyes flash yellow that one time - Shiro adds this to the list of apologies and concessions of arguments lost that he’ll have to make to his...to Adam when he gets back.) 

“But it’s none of my business, either. Galra or not, Keith is still Keith. And heartwarming as this is, you literally just worked him to the point of collapse, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take him back to the Castle before -”

The ground shakes.

Alarms go off, and two Blades immediately take position around Shiro, effectively restraining him. He sighs. There is no point in protesting. Besides, it’s not like he can stop the rampage of an angry and frankly overprotective Lion.

Another black-suited rebel runs in.

“The Red Lion is attacking the base!” they gasp. “It’s trying to break through!”

_Why, yes, thank you, Captain Obvious,_ Shiro almost says. _Here I thought it was just one of the extremely deadly celestial bodies stationed around the base. Which, by the way, is also a terrible idea if you ever want to move around. You know, get some fresh air, except it won’t be fresh, because you’ll be breathing in space dust in the heat of a giant blue star while two supermassive black holes burn around you! That’s some great scenery, though._ (Again, why are the rebels so fixated on _the aesthetic_?)

Instead, he schools his face into an impassive expression and states the _other_ obvious: “It has a link with Keith. It knows when he’s in danger. It’s coming for him.”

He tries not to sound smug, but there’s a small part of him that is laughing maniacally.

Keith stirs. Shiro sets him down, letting him put an arm around his shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

“Stop what you’re doing!” roars Cameraman. Shiro takes a moment to school his features into something resembling patience. Why can’t they just let them leave with the knife?

“What are you talking about? What’s going on?” murmurs Keith - and oh, yeah. The kid just collapsed. They need to get back to the Castle. Unfortunately, literally _everything_ is getting in the way.

“Call off your beast!” Coral-reef persists. Can he? Shiro doesn’t know. Red has always been a bit... _overprotective_ when it comes to Keith. She may be on a rampage.

“Move out of the way!” he says instead of telling them that. “We’re leaving.”

“You’re not leaving with that blade,” insists Kaleidoscope as the base shakes and rumbles around them. “It does belong to you. You failed to awaken it!”

“What does that mean?” asks Keith, sounding as tired as he looks. Shiro can relate. Not _run-yourself-to-death_ tired, of course, but still tired of aesthetic-fixated space rebel organisations that think they’re edgy and cool. No one in particular, of course.

Instead of giving him a verbal answer, the Blade who seems to be Competitive’s right hand man (or woman? Or...Blade. Right hand Blade.) charges, sword extended. Shiro steps up to block it, activating his right arm (or, as the kids - er, Paladins - sometimes call it, his _Ultimate Bitch-Slap_ ) and letting go of Keith in the process...something he probably shouldn’t have done. But Bladey-Guy is still attacking, so Shiro does his best to fight with maximum defense and minimum offense. 

Is there any hope of an alliance anymore? Probably not. Space etiquette says you probably shouldn’t fight your hosts either, but they’re already this deep into the hole they’ve dug, so...why not?

“Wait!” yells Keith. Oh, he’s still standing. That’s good. “Just take the knife!”

Mr. Right-Hand-Blade finally stops attacking. Since he’s probably not a threat anymore, Shiro turns to look at Keith.

Take the knife?  
Didn’t he literally just almost get himself killed for the knife? Is he just going to...give it away now?

Damn anime tropes. Seriously. They’re not in a cartoon.

“It doesn’t matter where I come from,” rasps Keith. “I know who I am. We all need to work together to defeat Zarkon.” (Good on Keith for remembering the main objective; he’ll make a great Black Paladin someday.) “And if that means I give up this knife, fine. Take it.”

Okay. Shiro runs through a mental checklist of this particular trope: dramatic sacrifice of object close to heart for the Greater Good, check, now all they need is…

The blade starts to glow.

Shiro stifles his sigh.

Honestly, it was kind of obvious what was going to happen.

“Huh?” whispers Keith. Get with the program, brother, you’re a protagonist. The glow of the knife brightens, completely shielding him from view.

“You’ve awoken the blade!” crows the right hand. _Yes, he has. Thank you once again, Mr. Obvious. Assuming you were the same guy as before, which there’s no way of telling because everyone in these edgy-rebel uniforms looks the same._

The glow fades, revealing Keith, no longer holding a knife but a curved purple-grey sword. Shiro glances at Crustacean, whose expression is unreadable as always. He’s willing to bet that he knows what the Blade is thinking, though: it’s true. Keith’s activated his glowy blade powers, he completed the death run - he _is_ Galra.

And honestly, Shiro doesn’t really care, but Keith does look like he’s on the verge of collapsing again, and now that there’s no more reason to be yelling and trying to murder each other, the aesthetic-fixated emo furries better let them get back to the Castle before Red goes on another rampage.

“Can you fly us back?” he asks Keith, who looks just the tiniest bit shaken, but still nods. “Okay. Get us back to the Castle, and we can…” 

He aims a pointed glance at Carry-on. 

“...Talk about what happened.”

* * *

He’s done it. And he’s pretty sure he gets to keep the blade, too, which is a nice outcome. He’s still got a shot at those answers. 

Still, what he wants even more than answers right now is rest. He’ll probably just be able to get Red out of the volatile doormat of the Blade base and then leave it all to autopilot. Will Shiro make him stay for negotiations? On second thought, he should. He can take a five-hour nap after the Blades leave to do their thing. Maybe longer. Maybe twelve, or hell - even twenty-four. Yeah, a day-long nap ( _not_ a coma, he tells the Adam-sounding voice in his head, a day-long nap) sounds nice. 

His hands shake ever so slightly as he guides Red the final few metres off the path that just skirts the event horizon. The further along he goes, the harder it is to keep his eyes open, but he wills himself to see even with blurry vision just a little bit further, just a few metres more…

The Castleship comes into view, and he lets himself relax. At the very least, if he completely blacks out here, Red can take them inside.

His hands slip off the controls.

Faintly, he can hear someone curse in the background. _Shiro._

He has just enough consciousness left for his thoughts to echo the same word his brother just growled before his mind completely blanks.

* * *

The perhaps-not-quite-as-human boy has shown a remarkable amount of resilience, and Kolivan is not at all surprised when he completely passes out. He keels over sideways, caught by the Black Paladin before he hits the floor.

A fighter to the _very_ last, it seems. Could he be Krolia’s boy? Kolivan had his suspicions at first, but it seems there is more and more evidence piling up of such a thing.

Ah, yes...the evidence. More specifically, the awoken blade, now in dormant form and back on the boy’s belt. He is indubitably Galra. Although Shiro had ended up informing Keith of this on the flight, most of the trip the the Altean Castle of Lions (a pleasant surprise to find it is still in operation) was spent nonetheless in tense silence. Not that Kolivan is unfamiliar with silence of such kind. He’s rarely experienced any other kind.

The Lion brings them closer to one of the spires, seemingly running by itself. The Voltron Lions are said to be vessels of remarkable sentience. He had not believed that myth until today.

The Black Paladin opens a hailing frequency.

“Princess, we’re coming back, and we’re bringing someone you should meet. Also - get a pod ready.”

He closes the transmission before the person on the other end - presumably the Princess of Altea - has a chance to respond.

“It is quite fortunate that the Princess and the Castle survived the destruction of Altea,” offers Kolivan. It seems a harmless statement to him, but it causes the man in black-and-white armour to sigh heavily and cast his gaze to the side. Kolivan catches snatches of a sentence: “... _tropes...of_ course _she’s alive, anyone...basic comprehension of…_ ”

He follows the glance, but there is nothing there.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking into the camera like I’m on the Office,” Shiro says drily. 

“The Lions have surveillance cameras?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know, actually.”

Kolivan chalks it up to another human oddity and lets the subject drop.

They land in a large docking bay. Three humans and two Alteans are waiting for them. This is the new Team Voltron. The universe will be defended by these...er. Noble heroes. 

(Really, sizing them up...he can’t help but be concerned for said universe.)

He has two agents with him, but he waits for the Black Paladin to leave before any of them move. Shiro carries his brother out, to the general concern (and in some cases, untrusting and angry glares directed at Kolivan - he rescinds some of what he’d thought before, it seems they _can_ be scary) of the team.

“It’s fine,” Shiro tells the rest of them, beginning to walk past the group and deeper into the Castle. “He overexerted himself. Nothing too bad.”

He is clearly attempting to calm the tension in the room. Both Voltron and the Marmora would benefit from an alliance, and distrust will only be a hindrance - something that he obviously knows. Despite his bouts of Earthen oddness, he is undoubtedly a capable leader.

“What happened?” the Altean princess asks Shiro, stopping him where he is. He sighs.

“I’ll explain...later. Our top priority -” he moves to exit the room again.

“I believe you should be here to verify our statements,” Kolivan tells him. Even from the mouth of the hangar, he can see the strain around the Black Paladin’s eyes, the tightening of his mouth. From an emotional standpoint, it makes sense, he supposes. The man doesn’t want to leave his brother. There is simply no place for emotions, however. This is war, and as he’s the only one awake to confirm any of the claims Kolivan or the other two agents make. Logically, he should stay.

He seems to accept this, because he sighs. 

“Lance!”

The tall Paladin in blue armour stands the slightest bit straighter. Shiro’s already walking over to him, gently shoving the unconscious Red Paladin into his arms. 

(For about half a second, Kolivan thinks he chose the Blue Paladin because he was the closest. Then he realises _why_ exactly he was the closest, and he barely suppresses a sigh.)

(Children. Sentimental, emotional, bleeding-heart-hopeless romantics. In space. It’s not a good combination.)

“Take him to the medbay. There should be a pod ready - Coran?”

The other Altean, seemingly the princess’s advisor, nods...extremely _enthusiastically._ His mustache flies up and down with every motion. “Affirmative, number two!”

Number two? What are they ranked in? Combat ability? Intelligence? ... _Age?_

“Good.” Shiro turns back to the rest of them. Kolivan takes this as his cue to step forward, kneeling in front of the princess as he removes his hood. The other agents follow suit.

“Princess Allura,” he greets, “it’s good to see that the rumours are true. You’re still alive after all these years.”

(He’s not exactly sure _how_ \- all he’s heard is something about a cryopod. Whatever it is, she’s here and aiding the war effort, Altean princess or not. She could be a Tirian Xccvolok as far as he cared. Although those were probably extinct, too - the last he’d heard of anything like them was from Krolia’s report of a ‘Jersey Devil’ on Earth.)

“So is Zarkon,” she replies coldly, straight to the point. “Can we consider you an ally in our fight against him?”

At least _one_ member of team Voltron seems to have their head on straight. It doesn’t hurt that she seems to be more or less their driving force.

“Yes, but we have little time to discuss this. I just received word from our spy inside the Galran hierarchy. They have become aware of our presence, so the timetable for our plan has been moved up.”

Shiro speaks again. “How soon do we need to begin?”

“Now.”

A beat passes. Something changes in the air. It feels, Kolivan thinks, like anticipation.

Evidently, however, he’s wrong.

“Okay,” says the big one in yellow armour. “So now that the mood’s inexplicably changed and we know the episode’s over, we’re gonna wait for Keith to wake up, right? ‘Cause Pidge and I -” he breaks off to gesture at the Green Paladin. Kolivan has heard much of her technological prowess, but he worries silently for her combat ability. She’s just...so _small._

“ - We’re still pretty sure that time goes all wonky until the next episode starts.”

“Meaning we can do whatever the fuck we want, including cuss without being talked out of it by some voice in our head,” the smallest Paladin adds.

“Language, Pidge,” says Shiro tiredly. “You can still be censored by the voices _outside_ your head.”

Voices? In their heads? Is this...are they absolutely sure this is Voltron? What do they mean by _episode_ , anyway?

“We can still start on our planning,” says the princess, back to business. “We should be prepared by the time...what was it again?”

“Episode nine,” the Green Paladin pipes up. “Season two.”

“Yes. By the time episode nine rolls around.”

Shiro shoots Allura a look of betrayal, which she simply shrugs at.

“Like I keep saying, Shiro,” the Yellow Paladin says as Allura pulls up holographic maps in the background, “things have been weird as hell ever since we got blasted into space. At this point, all we can do is accept it.” 

“And maybe fuck around with the fourth wall for fun.”

“Exactly, Pidge.”

“ _Language_ , Pidge.”

Kolivan, needless to say, is rather concerned for the fate of the universe.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you can't tell, I've been awake for too long.  
> Alternate titles for this stupid thing:
> 
> "*gerard way voice* keep running"  
> "running for your knife"  
> "NOT CLICKBAIT: the fitnessgram pacer test is an ALIEN CONSPIRACY???"  
> "the blade of memeora"


End file.
